Call it too many early days and late nights of endless job searching leading nowhere. After 100+ applications and 9 months post-NCLEX with my RN with no interviews and no offers, I am ready for something different. I think more than a few of us are in this boat. Spring and summer are almost here, so here's my idea: Let's go for a summer bike ride across the U.S. as New Grad RN's! Here's why:
We will be much healthier mentally and physically for our efforts and get up off our collective butts that are so sore from all this fruitless job searching.
We can bring attention to the problem of hospitals not hiring new grad nurses.
We can network and share in a fun experience.
We will be in the best shape of our lives when we get hired through this ride.
We didn't go through pre-nursing and nursing schools only to encounter this awful situation. We worked hard to become RN's, remember? So, let's be good to ourselves for a change and turn this isolating unemployment experience into a collective positive one. I would be willing to bet that we could fund raise and get people to sponsor us on our ride. We could start a website, get active, enjoy ourselves, job search en route, and maybe this will put our nursing careers into gear. (pun intended)
The job of the nurse is to lead. The job of the nurse is to demonstrate what is possible in the face of adversity, to teach, and to effect healthy living and positive response to the inevitable rough patches in life: To make the best of things. And maybe, just maybe after such a ride there will be employers knocking on our door instead of the other way around. And don't you think they would be the kinds of folks you would want to work for?
Finances are an issue for most of us, so again let's get sponsored starting with our friends, neighbors, families. Does it sound like Relay For Life? Not that much different, is it? We are nurses. If you want to work as a registered nurse, and you ARE a registered nurse as I am, but there is a systemic rejection of new graduate RN's, then let's get going. Why should we grind it out in isolation behind the computer screen? Let's get into shape, let's see the country, let's show how healthy we can be, let's show that we are here and we want to work. Let's pedal! National Nurses Week is May 6 - May 12 this year. Not a bad time to kick it off. We didn't come all this way to get stopped dead in our tracks. Who's with me?
